Confused by service charge!

PlutoinCapricorn

I have bought my flat but when I was a tenant my monthly payments included a service charge.

cheap-information

Have you included the ground rent? My place bundles the ground rent with the service charge and so makes it look as if I have been overcharged when in fact I haven't

Freecall

At the risk of stating the obvious, what does your lease say?

Surely that is all that matters, the rest is guesswork.

curious_badger

Thanks for all of your replies.

BrassicWoman - Possibly could be 20% VAT, although it's not mentioned or stated anywhere.

Jamei305 - As an educated guess, I would confidently assume that all flats are on a communal meter for water, I will find out from them directly tomorrow and report back.

PlutoinCapricorn - We also own the flat. It must have been easier to just pay as normal as a part of the rent and not have a separate bill! (Although not necessary easier as I assume rent would have been dearer, but you get my point!)

Cheap-information - Ground rent is collected by a separate company, so I'm confident it's not that (highly unlikely but would be nice if it was though!)

Freecall - Will try to have a dig for the lease soon, see if anything comes to light from it. Either way will find out for sure tomorrow.

piggeh

I thought that service charges were supposed to be apportioned by the net usable area of the building so if you have a bigger flat, you pay more? Maybe it's just commercial premises, but that is the RICS guidance.

It is 20% higher though, so could be VAT by the looks of it.

curious_badger

It turns out that the "18 shy" properties belong to a housing association and have their own separate breakdown for their service charge.

Thanks to all who suggested possibilities!

Lioness_Twinkletoes

curious_badger wrote: »

Hi all, I hope someone can help ..

I live in a close comprising of 107 flats

Me and my partner received the annual service charge demand/breakdown recently.

The breakdown shows a grand total of £110,665.
Followed by our payable portion of that, which is £1,243

Now, I'm confused, because that £110,665 total divided by 107 flats would mean £1,034 (over £200 cheaper than demanded!)

I've done the maths and the total has only been divided by 89 flats (18 flats shy). We live in a 1 bed, so if the charge differs for bigger/smaller properties then we should be paying the lower amount anyway ..

Obviously it's Sunday, so can't call to find out, but hoped someone would be able to offer a plausible explanation so I can make sense of it? Is it possible that the unnacounted 18 flats are council? So everyone else pays for them?

Thanks!

It's probably calculated by rateable value and not per flat.

EDIT: Late to the party, I see. Glad it's been resolved.